Hugo Hamilton beamed with delight at the room full of friends, family and neighbours who came to Eason-Hanna's Bookshop on Dawson Street in Dublin to congratulate him on the recent publication of his memoir, The Speckled People, which tells his story of growing up in Dublin in the 1950s with his brothers and sisters and their Irish father and German mother.
Writing The Speckled People was difficult and cathartic, said Hamilton.
"You have to relive the whole experience in order to come to terms with it. I didn't want to tell the gloomy stories. My mother always saved the day with her humour and it was very important to bring that out."
The "good - if flawed - Irish father", as one reviewer describes him, died in 1978. "He began to regret some of the things that he did," said Hamilton.
"He had made a lot of mistakes and he understood his own flaws. He would make different mistakes if he had his life over again. There was a redemption in a way."
The German ambassador, Gottfried Haas, and Dr Matthias Müller-Wieferig, of the Goethe Institute, were among the guests. Historian and writer Tim Pat Coogan, who knew Hamilton growing up in Glenageary, came along too.
The RTÉ Léargas team filmed the proceedings for a future documentary about Hamilton. (A programme about the book will also run on RTÉ Radio on Wednesday, March 19th.)
The writer Peter Sheridan, whose play, Finders Keepers, will be staged in the Peacock as part of the National Theatre centenary celebrations next year, was there too. His own book, Big Fat Love will be out later this year.
Hamilton's family were out in force: his wife, Mary Rose Doorly, and their children, Coman and Sorcha as well as the writer's five siblings Frank Hamilton, Máire Hamilton, Ita Doorly, Bríd Edgar and Ciarán Ó hUrmoltaigh were all present.
Others who came to enjoy the party included Roddy Doyle, and his parents Ita and Rory Doyle, a writer from Berlin, Jürgen Schneider, who was on a break from Annaghmakerrig in Co Monaghan, Siobhán O'Donoghue, chief executive of Media Desk Ireland, Anthony O'Keeffe, Fair City scriptwriter, poet Harry Clifton, writer Philip Casey and John Fairleigh, director of the Stewart Parker Trust.
The Speckled People is published by Fourth Estate.